By the time we’ve finished eating and put the dishes in the dishwasher, the exhaustion from the day has caught upwith me. When Rhodes puts his hand on my shoulder, I sag into him, my forehead on his chest. I smile when I hear his low, raspy laugh.
“Should I carry you to bed?” he asks.
“I’m almost tired enough to agree,” I tell him, propping my chin on his chest and looking up at him.
He’s wearing my favorite expression, the adoring one.
“Have I said I'm really glad you're here?” he asks.
“You have. And I'm really glad I'm here too.”
He leans in for a second, and my airwaves halt. I just know he's about to kiss me. He seems to come to his senses and pauses long enough for me to step back.
“Night. I’ll see ya when I see ya,” I finish lamely. “I’ve got to work a couple hours at the chiropractor's office early in the morning and then I'll be going to practice.”
“All right.” He nods. “You know I want to kiss you, right?”
My insides get shaky, stunned that he's just coming out with it. I try to nod nonchalantly.
“Yeah, I kind of thought so.”
He stares at me, his hazel eyes glued on me. “We already know how fucking amazing it would be.”
“It would also be confusing though. Right?”
“Right,” he says finally.“Right.” Firmer this time.
When I get into bed, I’m wide awake and unable to stop thinking about that near kiss. I hear him walk past my room and pause, and my heartbeat nearly pounds out of my chest.
I wonder if he'll knock lightly or maybe crack open the door to see if I'm sleeping…
When he keeps walking down the hall, I'm disappointed.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
PLAY IT COOL
RHODES
Now
I get up earlythe next morning, having barely slept.
I'm going to love having Elle live here…and it's going to be fucking torture.
I still hop out of bed feeling pretty damn great.
Things are good. We're winningagain with the Mustangs. I don’t think it’s enough to turn our season around entirely, but we're playing much better than we were.
It's been a huge loss not having Henley playing, but Cal’s coming around. We're getting there and this weekend, we're going to win again.
I chuckle under my breath when I hear Elle singing in the shower. She's a horrible singer and it's the cutest thing ever. When she walks into the kitchen half an hour later, looking all cute and perky, I lift my protein shake to my lips to keep from smiling too big. I need to maintain my cool a little bit.
We're going to make this work. I don't want to send her running right back to that condo next door to the creeper just because I can't get ahold of myself.
“Good morning! I hope I didn’t wake you up.”
“Not at all. Would you like a shake?” I ask.
